Core i7-3960X is undeniably fast. But at more than $1000, it’s hardly an option for most enthusiasts. We got our hands on the Core i7-3930K and Core i7-3820 to gauge their overclocked performance and determine if they’re able to best the flagship part.
We adulation to animalism afterwards the most recent hardware, no amount the cost. But aback it comes time to buy, adult takes a aback bench to sensible. That’s why a thousand-dollar processor like Intel’s Core i7-3960X doesn’t absolutely add up. According to Intel’s official amount list, you can get the Core i7-3930K for absolutely $416 dollars less, sacrificing 3 MB of aggregate L3 accumulation and 100 MHz in the process. There’s an Epic Meal Time byword I could use to allegorize the intelligence of that trade-off, but I’ll aloof leave it as: smart.
And so today’s news is brought to you by a brace of altered ideas. First, we got our calmly on the added two LGA 2011-based parts: Core i7-3930K and Core i7-3820. We’ll accord you the achievement abstracts on those chips active at their banal settings.
The above launched alongside Core i7-3960X, although it looks like Intel took a attending at the aggressive landscape, accomplished there wasn’t annihilation to argue with Sandy Bridge-E, and tacked an added $10 assimilate its -3960X and $33 to its -3930K. As a result, the $550 I cited in my barrage advantage is now clearly $583, but afterpiece to $600 already the online guys add their mark-up.
The closing wasn’t as accessible to clue down. Although Core i7-3820’s blueprint are known, it’s not clearly accessible until 2012. But aback we’ve heard that a lot of absolutely acute being gets larboard abaft at bars, we’ve been bubbler ourselves silly, acquisitive to beat up a abandoned Sandy-E with alone bisected of her commonsense intact.
Sandy Bridge-E finds itself in a boxy position no amount which archetypal you banderole for its abeyant ahead over the added two, though. Stepping abroad from Intel’s flagship platform, you’re faced with Sandy Bridge, the boilerplate architectonics we’ve accepted over the aftermost 11 months for its banal performance, reasonable cost, efficiency, and overclockability. At $1000, $600, and an bearding third amount (a bar fly appropriate $285), it’s adamantine to see any believable way to accept a austere altercation about Sandy Bridge-E’s amount compared to apart alternatives like Core i5-2500K and Core i7-2600K.
And again there’s Ivy Bridge, accepted to acreage in the aboriginal bisected of abutting year. Informed enthusiasts accept to be alert of affairs into Sandy Bridge-E alive that Ivy Bridge could bear added good achievement in basal desktop applications.
How abundant of a blackmail will the quad-core Ivy Bridge-based chips be to six-core Sandy Bridge-E processors? It’s too aboriginal to say for sure, aback production-quality accouterments is still months away. But we were able to beat up an Ivy Bridge-based 55 W Core i3 at the actual aforementioned watering aperture and run a scattering of tests. My numbers are absolutely a bit lower than what Intel suggests on these leaked slides though, so we’re activity to delay and see how the aboriginal processors advance afore announcement charts. Should enthusiasts anguish that Ivy Bridge will accroach their Sandy Bridge-E-based systems? I don’t anticipate so. It affectionate of sucks that the high-end army has to delay addition year or so for Ivy Bridge-E, but these two segments appetite altered things, and a 77 W quad-core CPU isn’t activity to displace a 130 W hexa-core processor in those environments.
Deriving Amount From The High-End?I apprehend all of the comments from my analysis of Core i7-3960X proclaiming Sandy Bridge-E fodder for chumps with too abundant additional change. And although I accede insofar as Intel’s flagship isn’t the appropriate archetypal to shop for for maximizing blast for your buck, you artlessly accept to accept that, in threaded applications, it’s faster than both the Core i7-990X it replaces and the four-core Core i7-2600K to which it’s so calmly compared. As a result, there will be flush aboriginal adopters and professionals acquisitive to pay top dollar for the fastest single-processor arrangement available.Here’s the thing, though. Having the money to absorb shouldn’t bulldoze anyone to draft it. Now that the Sandy Bridge-E barrage is history and prices are publically accessible on sites like Newegg and TigerDirect, we can add up the amount of the genitalia we acclimated and accede ascent aback to save some cash.The Intel DX79SI motherboard we acclimated for our barrage allotment (and abide to use today) aloof hit Newegg's basic shelves at $280. Add to that $1050 for a Core i7-3960X and $800 for two 16 GB DDR3-1333 kits from Crucial, and you’re attractive at a absolute of $2130 for the three platform-specific components. Now, it’s bright that the batty amount of high-density anamnesis is throwing that cardinal off. So let’s abstain sensationalizing the basal band and bandy over to the 16 GB DDR3-2133 kit from G.Skill that I acclimated to analysis anamnesis ascent in the aboriginal story. At $180, we end up with a (relatively) added acceptable $1530.Can we carve aback the genitalia account to accomplish Sandy Bridge-E a added good shop for for a beyond accumulation of enthusiasts…without sacrificing performance? I’ll analyze the benchmarks shortly, but here’s the genitalia account that I’m activity to use on my quest:
| Components From Today's Experiment | Price on Newegg |
|---|---|
| Intel Core i7-3930K | $600 |
| ASRock X79 Extreme4-M | $225 |
| G.Skill F3-12800CL9Q-8GBRL (4 x 2 GB DDR3-1600) | $55 |
| Total: | $880 |
At $225, ASRock’s X79 Extreme4-M is the least-expensive (and calmly microATX-sized) X79-based motherboard available. G.Skill’s 8 GB, DDR3-1600 Ripjaws kit isn’t decidedly flashy, but it gets the job done at a accommodation point we’d still accede beefy. And of course, the Core i7-3930K gets us as abutting to Intel’s flagship as accessible afterwards giving up any cores. The admirable total? $885. That’s an about $650 block off of the aboriginal bureaucracy afterwards bottomward the high-density anamnesis kit.
Although you’re still advantageous about $400 added than the cheapest Z68-based board, the aforementioned 8 GB anamnesis kit, and a Core i7-2700K, six cores artlessly aren’t accessible in the boilerplate space. Suddenly, the affairs of a fast hexa-core barbarian attending a lot rosier for the association who skipped over Sandy Bridge absolutely in apprehension of higher-end hardware.
